Subject: Re: consoles
To: Chris G. Demetriou <cgd@cs.cmu.edu>
From: Perry E. Metzger <perry@piermont.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 01/23/1997 18:12:38
"Chris G. Demetriou" writes:
> It actually _really_ surprises me that you can type to both in the
> firmware.  That has interesting security implications.  (what if
> you've set your machines up to use a graphics console, and have put a
> terminal in somebody's office for them to use.  They shouldn't be able
> to type to the firmware from that terminal...)

We spent a lot of time getting our machines at Lehman set up so that
we could have users on the keyboard/display but have the o/s allow
firmware access over the serial line -- we then attached the serial
lines to terminal servers. We did this so we could do stuff like
bringing up and down machines to the firmware from remote locations
and reinstalling them. We could do stuff like completely reloading a
machine sitting in a remote city, which was really important.

Perry